Not without you
by Backgroundnoise
Summary: Mac and Stella sacrifices
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Mac Taylor is mine.

Title: Not without you.

Note: English isn't my native language, so be a little bit indulgent.

By Lylou

She tiredly left her black and stylish coat on the chair and look at him, he always seemed like an Armani advertisement with his professional hair-cut and his dark suits specially now, in winter, Stella could see his coat hung behind him, it was January, she was cold, hungry, almost without sleeping and caffeine needed.

-You look … distracted.

Are you okay?

-…Yes just my noisy neighbour, I believe that she had a little …. private party last night.

-I see… You have the typical case of "romantic neighbours".

-It didn't seem too romantic to me.

Too many strange noises for my pleasure…

Why are you smiling?

- I never thought that you were of the easily scandalize ones.

-_Au contraie,_ there are many things of me that you do not know Mac Taylor….

But that was little weird for me.

-So…you are not really the handcuffs and whip type.

-No, definitely not.

Can we just forget this conversation?

I don't like to speak about my sexual life with my boss.

He looked at her in silence, thinking about the beautiful she was when she dressed green, and trying to pretend that her commentary about her sexual life had not burned his heart.

-… As you want.

-Thanks.

Something new?

-… Yes, my fan number one wants to speak with me.

-"The cowboy" wants to speak with you?

-Yes… so we must have everything prepared, microphones, all equipment… that guy has killed thirteen people Stella.

-And you want to be the fourteen?

-He doesn't want to kill me, he is just another damn bastard how wants to be famous in New York… That's why he always sends me his repulsive crimes photos.

-Or maybe he is in love with you.

-Now you are scaring me Stella.

-Seriously, we don't know what the hell is in his rotten brain, maybe he is the quite famous now and he wants to kill you.

What other thing would he want now?

Unless he is completely stupid, he must know that we are going to try to catch him.

-Maybe he is in love with me.

-It's not funny Mac.

-I know, it's creepy, he isn't really my kind…

-I hope that you continue being so funny when you are dead.

-I'm not going to die Stella, not today.

-Now you are a medium?

I don't like this plan.

-It's part of our job.

-Mac… there are things more important than a job.

-Not for us.

Stella looked him a little gloomy and sighed; she approached to him until invading his personal space, until she was able to smell his after-shave and gave him a fast and warm kiss in his cheek

-Be careful partner.

-I will.

To be continued….

All the opinions and ideas are welcomes.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: They are not mine, I can swear it.

Title: Not without you.

Dedicated to my patient and sweet beta Jo, she does the entire hard job.

By Lylou

From where he was, Mac could see her clearly, he could intuit her bullet-proof vest underneath her Donna Karen suit.

The commercial center was full of people.

That's why that bastard wanted to be there. Mac could see Stella and the rest of the team separated, pretending to be shopping or taking a walk.

If anything went wrong, innocent people could die today, he thought. He had to catch that son of a bitch before somebody got hurt.

Or dead.

Mac saw a man with a red baseball cap looking at him and walking in his direction. It was him.

His voice was cold and superior when he spoke:

"Finally…the great Mac Taylor in person."

"Who are you?"

"That's doesn't matter, Mac…Can I call you Mac?"

"Why don't you come with me?"

"Not so fast, boss…The game has only just started."

"The 'game'? You are killing people and sending me the photos…This isn't a game."

"…Well, maybe you just don't know how to have some fun, Mac. That's what she always says to you, isn't it?"

Mac felt a chill up his spine and couldn't help but look behind the suspect; she was still there, looking nervously at him, listening to every word through her little earphone. Was he talking about Stella?

"Do you miss her, Mac?"

"…Who?"

"You know who…your partner."

Mac was more and more tense. He couldn't understand anything that was going on. Stella was there, just a few meters behind the suspect. She was looking at him, worried, but she was fine.

"Why I would miss her? "Mac asked.

"You don't know yet...? She's dead."

Mac looked at Stella again out of the corner of his eye.

"You don't believe me, Mac?"

"No."

"Why would I lie?

I'm going to die today."

"No, you aren't….I'm going to make sure that you go where you belong - into a nauseating jail cell."

"You want to bet?"

Suddenly the man with a red cap grabbed a gun, aimed and fired.

Mac felt an intensive pain burning somewhere on his body, the warm blood began to flow and he felt confused for a moment, and then, he fell to the floor.

The guy aimed at him again, but before he could shoot, Mac fired his own gun at him twice and saw him fall to the ground.

Mac could barely hear the shouting, and people were running around in all directions, but before his eyes closed, he saw Stella running toward him.

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: They are not mine, I can swear it.

Title: Not without you.

Dedicated specially to my patient and sweet beta Jo, I can't do it without you, literally.

By Lylou

He felt the white light on his eyelids long before he opened his eyes. His left side burned, and he felt nauseous, but he could have been worse. Much worse.

Finally he opened his eyes and looked around.

She was there looking through the window, and from where he was, Mac could see the snow falling slowly and silently outside.

"Hi, partner."

Stella turned a bit surprised, and the expression on her face was similar to a tiny smile.

"Hi… How are you feeling?"

Mac always had hated hospitals. He didn't like being injured or sick; he felt useless and unfit to help anybody.

He sat up slowly in bed and felt the stitches pulling on his skin.

"I've been worse."

"I'm sure of that. The bullet entered and exited without damaging any organs…you're lucky."

"So… Can I go?"

"Yes… I will let you go. You can get dressed."

"Stella… wait, please. Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"Are there more wounded?"

"No, just you."

"And the guy… it was him, wasn't it?"

"His blood type was the same as our suspect's, but they are doing a complete DNA test to be sure."

Stella neared the bed, and he could see her worried and tired face for the first time since he was awake. Her green blouse was creased, and her hair was held in a ponytail, but her eyes burned him more than the wound on his side.

Without knowing exactly why, Mac held her hand and squeezed it. Her skin was cold and soft, and for a moment, just before he could avoid it, Mac wondered if her skin would be that smooth and cold all over her body.

"Thank you, partner."

Stella didn't say anything but release her hand slowly and walked to the door without look back.

"Stella…you're angry with me, aren't you?"

"Later, Mac… later."

The door closed behind her, and Mac could still smell her perfume in the air for a few seconds later, and he realized how lonely and cold the room was without her.

"Thank you for bringing me back to my apartment, Stella."

"Do you believe you can take care of yourself until tomorrow?"

"I will call you if I need anything, I promise."

In silence, she walked up to the door and opened it. Mac could feel his house dark and lonely without her, maybe more than he could stand for the night.

"Stella… I'm sorry."

"You are sorry?…I thought you were _dead_."

"I… I didn't mean to worry you, Stella."

"Then why did you do it? ...I told you that it was a bad idea; I told you what was going to happen... And you didn't listen me. You could've died."

"But I didn't… It's our job, Stella."

"No, Mac… it's our lives."

"I love my job. It's all that I ever wanted to be, but I know when to say 'stop.'"

"So… you are angry because you think that I can't say 'stop?'"

"No, Mac, I'm angry because you know well enough when to say 'stop,' but you never do."

"I say 'Stop' every day of my life, Stella."

"But never in your work, Mac. Just in your real life.

What if it had been on the contrary, Mac? What if he had wanted to see _me_ instead of you?"

"I wouldn't have let you go."

"Because you knew it was a dangerous and stupid plan."

Mac looked at her in silence; he knew that he had lost the discussion since the beginning. She was right. It had been a bad idea and the hot pain beating on his side was the damn proof.

"Stella… Are you going to sleep here?"

"I'll take the sofa."

"Okay...I'm sorry, Stella."

"I know…. But you scared the hell out of me."

Stella smiled for the first time in all the day and walked to the middle of the room where he was.

She neared, and Mac could feel her warm breath upon his skin and her hands on his nape. She left a soft kiss on his cheek, but this time, she looked at his eyes a second more than necessary.

They always knew when to say 'stop.'

"That's the second time that you kissed me today…It must be my lucky day."

"Sure… your near-death experience has no importance."

"It was not a near-death experience, Stella… your Greek blood is exaggerating."

"I'm not exaggerating, Mac; I just want you to feel guilty."

"Well… It's working."

"I'm glad."

He smiled softly and looked at her with a strange grin, in his half-dark house with the snow slowly covering the city outside, thinking seriously for the first time in weeks: "What if…?"

"Mac… What are you thinking?"

Her voice sounded smooth and almost sexy in the room full of shadows, and he couldn't help but imagine how it would be if it were that mysterious and always familiar voice in the middle of the night in his bed, with her warm breath on his neck.

"You will never know, Stella."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

"Are you hungry, Mac?"

"Very."

"Pizza?"

"Okay... But I don't want to see one anchovy on it, Stella.

"But…"

"I will make you leave Stella, I swear."

"And I will denounce you as sexual hound at work."

"Fair enough… But that isn't going to change my opinion about the anchovies."

Stella was going to answer when she heard her mobile phone in her coat.

"Bonasera…

Are you absolutely sure, Danny?...Yes …I will tell him."

Stella hung up the phone and remained silent for a few seconds.

"Hey… Are you okay, Stella?"

"News, one good and the other…. Not so good."

"The good first, please."

"Well, they finally got the complete DNA results… now we know why the blood type of the guy in the commercial-center this morning is the same as the sample that we got at the sixth crime scene."

"Why?"

"The 'why' is directly related to the bad news… It wasn't him, Mac."

"…But how could that be, Stella?... He was there, he recognized me, he knew about the photos and the crimes…and he has the same blood type as our suspect…. the only possibility would be if our real murderer…."

"…Was his father."

To be continued.

All the opinions are welcome.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: They are not mine, I can swear it.

Title: Not without you.

Dedicated specially to my really patient and sweet beta Jo, you know I can't do it without you, literally.

By Lylou

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"And now what? If the father is the real murder, our case is gone, Mac."

"At least we have his name. Jack Taker-Thomas. Without known direction, father of Will Taker-Thomas, who's death was this morning in the commercial-center shooting."

"So…Daddy is our real murderer, and we don't know where to search, what a surprise."

"Maybe it isn't all lost, Stella."

"How?"

"Seems like he wants my attention… I don't think this is over yet."

"Do you think the whole thing is about you?"

"I can't be completely sure, Stella, but he knows me, he knows our methods, he sent us his own son like bait… and he knows about you."

"Yes, he said something about me this morning…"

"…He said you were dead."

Mac hated the mental image of Stella's cold and lifeless body in his arms, although he knew that that would return many more times to his nightmares the following nights.

"I can't understand why, Mac. I mean, we suppose that they worked together. The son should know that I am alive."

"Serial killers rarely work in pairs. When there are two, only one is the decision-maker; I think Daddy controlled his son and sacrificed him."

"That sounds well for me…. But Mac, that means that there is still somebody very upset with you out there."

"I think now I'm gong to say "stop," Stella."

She looked at him in silence; the rest of the pizza was almost cold on the living-room table. Outside, it was freezing, and she could see the snow falling slowly and silently through the window. Mac's house always seemed a bit lonely for her, above all if she compared his cold apartment with her warm home, but it still smelled like him, like grey autumn mornings and the cold sea breeze, like Mac Taylor.

He was one of her favourite people in the world, but she couldn't make him happy. He always was sweet and warm, but Mac was the loneliest and saddest man she had ever known.

"Are you okay, Stella?"

"Yes, I just … it has been a long day, I guess.

"Go to sleep, Stella."

"No, you have to go to the bed. The sofa is mine, remember?"

"I can't let you sleep here."

"Why, because I'm a woman?"

"No… it is because you are…. you."

Stella nodded in silence, looking at him. She took off her jacket and left on the chair; she freed her hair from the ponytail and began to untie the blouse underneath Mac's unbelieving look.

"What are you doing, Stella?"

"I'm going to sleep now, Mac, and I can't do it dressed, so go to your bedroom if you don't want to see the end of the show…"

"I'm... I'm going to get some blankets for you."

"Thank you."

Mac left the room and came back a few minutes later with blankets and a pillow and gave them to her.

"If you need something else just…"

"I wouldn't wake you. You are hurt, remember?"

"Yes…That's why you are here, isn't it?"

Mac looked at her in silence. The only light in the room was the weak and amber one of the street lamp outside, through the curtains. She had the half of her green blouse buttons undone, her hair falling upon her face and the whole room smelling like her skin, like a sweet tangerine gilded from the sun.

He toyed again with his favourite thought; he couldn't help one more time. Mac thought about how it would feel, her warm and smooth body under him, the taste of her sweet tangerine skin among the shadows on his bed, to wake up in the middle of the night and see Stella Bonasera sleeping naked under his blankets with her curls spilled on his pillow.

His voice sounded deeper and darker than he wanted it to:

"What would have happened if I hadn't left the room before, Stella?"

"I guess we will never know."

Her voice was too familiar and too warm just to go to his bedroom and sleep. He still could see her, on his sofa, looking at him through the room's shadows.

He needed to rest; maybe tomorrow he wouldn't feel so tired and confused… but he wasn't confused. Mac knew it very well that for first time in weeks he was sure and really frightened.

"Good night, Stella."

"Good night."

She couldn't sleep and she had been trying for two hours. From the sofa, Stella could see the clock. It was past midnight.

She hated the insomnia nights when her brain worked at full speed and she couldn't do anything else except turn in the bed. Or the sofa.

_"Great, the second night in which you aren't going to sleep."_

And she remembered the face that Mac had on in the morning when she was speaking to him about her noisy neighbour's private party. It seemed that an eternity had passed from that, but it had been just a few hours ago... but the shooting in the commercial-center, Mac bleeding on the ground and the hospital, the evening had tired her absolutely, and to improve her day, she wasn't able to sleep now.

Outside, it was still snowing. At the end she had decided to sleep with her silk shirt; after all he was on the other side of the door, but now… she was feeling a little bit lonely.

Stella heard steps in the other room and knew that she wasn't the only one that couldn't sleep that night.

So she folded up the blankets and walked slowly towards the bedroom, and suddenly she remembered that the only thing that she was wearing was her green blouse, but the lights were off and it was just Mac.

Just Mac.

He had his hands leaned on the window frame, and he was watching the snow falling in silence into the shadowy streets. Mac was only wearing his pajama pants, and although he hadn't turned when she entered in the room, he knew that she was there.

"You can't sleep?"

Stella took more time than she thought to answer. His bed was completely unmade, and all the room was bathed in shade. Mac had separated from the window and watched her straight until Stella finally answered.

"Actually, no…. how you feel?"

"Fine... I have been worse."

"So, Mac…. why can't you sleep?"

He smiled weakly in the dark room, and Stella could see how the white bandage on his left side contrasted to the shadowy bedroom. She was a bit cold only with her shirt in January, but when she listened, his voice soft and deep in the room, she suddenly felt a warmth on her spine as if it was a south wind on a summer night.

"And you... why can't you sleep, Stella?"

"The adrenaline, I guess."

"Yes…."

Stella walked the few meters that still separated him from her and slowly put her hand on the bandage.

"Does this hurt you?"

Mac held her hand smoothly and looked at her between the shadows.

"Only when I laugh."

"Then, you do not have to worry."

Stella approached closer to him, and Mac could feel again the warm smell of her skin floating around in the dark room. She freed her small hand and stop touching the bandage to touch his skin. Mac felt his breathing accelerate a little when he felt her smooth and cold hand on his skin. Mac tried to speak but the words never got to leave his mouth.

She was too much close, how he had wished so many lonely and cold nights, but she smelled too good, her skin was much too smooth, and he almost could breathe her vanilla breath... but the worse thing was that she watched him, watched him and it seemed that her greenish eyes were done of green fire, just until Stella kissed to him.

And then everything became sweet heat around them.

He only could feel her warm body against him and the silk blouse underneath his hands.

Mac felt as if he had done that many other times, as if every night he had passionately kissed Stella Bonasera. They walked slowly until the wall, and he couldn't say anymore if they had been there for a minute or an hour, with her small body, which looked warmed up directly by the sun, against the cold wall of his room.

He slid his mouth by the smooth and warm skin of her neck, and suddenly Stella didn't seem a normal woman no longer, and he knew that never more would she look like one. The normal woman wasn't made of hot caramel.

Mac felt her breathe anxiously against his hair and smiled. He had nothing else more important in the world than this, her hot skin and her half words whispered in his ear, and all the while he was fighting with the small buttons of her shirt.

Suddenly, he heard a noise at the other side of the door, on the landing, but he decided that it wasn't enough important.

"Did you hear something?"

Her voice resounded partially, and she wasn't really separated from him, but Mac knew that something went wrong and whispered into her ear:

"Where it is your gun?"

Stella thought about it for a few seconds, and when she was going to answer, Mac heard more sounds that he could have sworn that come from the next room.

But before he couldn't do anything, Mac felt an intense pain in his wound and felt the warm and thick blood through the bandage.

His legs failed from the pain, and he fell to the ground. Then Mac saw the intruder for the first time while Stella was running into the living-room.

Mac felt painfully the man's foot on his wounded side and how his bandage soiled with blood.

The man was holding him against the ground with his foot when Mac saw Stella entering the room with her weapon and aiming it at the intruder.

They heard his voice for the first time; it was strangely cold and relaxed:

"I will kill him right now if you don't throw down the weapon."

"I will shoot you. I swear!" Stella shouted, but the man far from letting him go, tightened his hold on Mac with more strength, and Mac felt that he was beginning to faint.

The intruder continued treading down on Mac now with so much strength that Stella could see the blood in the wood floor.

Stella looked at Mac, and thought in a second.

She dropped the gun.

The intruder took handcuffs out and handed them to Stella.

"I guess you know how to put them on."

"No, Stella..."

She could hear Mac from the floor; his voice sounded weak, and every time she looked, there was more blood in the floor. She felt the cold metal against her wrists and a chill ran up her spine when she heard the "click" which meant that they were closed on her.

"Now let's go, baby."

"…If you touch her, I will kill you, do you hear me?"

"Today, you killed my son; I am the one that should be upset, don't you think, Mac?"

Stella wanted to shout and cry and all at the same time when she felt how the man threw her in the direction of the door.

"We are going now, doll, unless he wants to see what is going to happen with you."

Stella felt his cold voice against the skin of her cheek, and before being hauled through the door, she called out to Mac, who continued bleeding, still on the ground.

Mac couldn't avoid thinking that that was the second time in the same day in which he bled on the ground while Stella shouted his name.

And then everything turned black.

To be continue…..

All the opinions are welcome.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: They are not mine, I can swear it.

Title: Not without you.

Dedicated specially to my patient and sweet beta, I can't do it without you, literally.

By Lylou

----------

He opened his eyes slowly.

They felt like lead, and the first time that he blinked, he didn't know where he was.

There was something hard and cold under him.

"_The floor"_

Why was he on the floor?

His brain was very slow, he was confused, unable to think clearly against the fog clouding his mind.

He frowned as he tried to order his jumbled thoughts but they were just a thick and heavy blur on his mind.

What had woken him?

"_Stella"_

Something was wrong with Stella.

The only thing that he could really remember was her warm smell, hot and intoxicating, different from anyone else he knew…

But she needs help…he frowned as he tried to remember but all his thoughts were turned around and confused in his head.

He tasted her brown-sugar flavour on his dry mouth again, or at least, he thought that he did…

Had he really kissed her? Had he felt her hot breath in his dark bedroom? ….Why couldn't he remember?

And then he felt it, above all the confusion or the cold: the fear.

He tried to sit up

Pain.

He gasped as a searing pain shot through his side as he tried to move.

Suddenly everything became clear as images shot into his mind.

The intense pain as a foot ground into his injured side, as he lay on the cold ground unable to help her, Stella shouting his name… being taken from him.

He looked across the room to the phone.

And gritting his teeth against the pain, Mac dragged himself along the floor towards the telephone.

------------------

The doctors in the ER were just finishing re stitching the wound in his side.

The stitches in his side had been torn open and he had lost a lot of blood so the paramedics had forced him into going to the hospital.

He didn't want to, he just wanted go out there, and find her.

But it hurt like hell. Everything hurt.

Mac always had hated the hospitals, they where cold and depressing , the disinfectant smell on the air, the doctors running around, the tired and worried faces of the patients… and theirs families.

-So…nobody saw anything?

That's strange…

Mac could heard Flacks voice somewhere in the background, or at least he thought that he could, his head hurt like hell and he found it hard to concentrate. He knew very well how pain can blind the mind, _how it __can make you __fell fire inside__, even stopping you t__o__ think._

The doctors had just finished treating him He winced as the nurse pressed a dressing over the newly re stitched wound and taped it in place.

The pain radiated through him in waves making him feel sick and dizzy.

But maybe it wasn't just the wound that hurt.

Maybe what was hurting him most right now was the memory of seeing her black winter coat lying on his chair, her shoes thrown on the floor... the blanket over the sofa.

He almost hadn't been able to remember what had happened, how did things get so bad, and so fast.

Like everything bad that had happened in his life, all it took was just a second for his world to shatter like a broken mirror, leaving him alone to pick up the damn pieces of his new discovered loneliness.

Mac was lost in thought as he started to get when he heard a familiar voice at his back:

"You should be staying in the hospital Mac."

"I am ok Danny."

But he wondered why his own voice sounded much braver and more determined than he felt

"You look really bad Mac….. And you won't be able to help her if you bleed to death."

"I am not going to bleed……"

Mac turned to watch him, and although the pain on his side made him think that he was about to pass out again, his voice sounded controlled and hard, like if he was a different man now:

"And don't say again that I won't be able to help her."

-------------------------------

She blinked several times until her eyes grew accustomed slowly to the dark, she felt sick and dizzy, like if she had been going round in a merry-go-round for hours.

She felt pain somewhere in her left leg, maybe in the knee, the ankle...she wasn't quite sure.

She tried to move but she felt an acute and sharp pain in her wrists, she was tied to the wall, but when she tried to move, besides of the intensive pain on her wrists, she felt small fragments of wet gravel falling over her hair and her face.

Stella felt ill and confused, but the worse thing above all, was the almost painful cold that she was feeling.

Suddenly, she realized of she wasn't wearing her own clothes anymore; just some kind of a nightdress, Stella could see the fabric of the thin straps on her shoulders.

She listened to the water dripping in her dark and dirty jail, but she wasn't able to distinguish where.

Her whole body was freezing and hurting her, but when she began to think that the things couldn't get any worse, she heard breathing next to her ear.

And she froze.

Stella could feel his chilly and nauseous breath on her cheek, she had already felt it before, in Mac's house… her mind shot back to the apartment and Mac in pain lying, bleeding on the floor, and then she felt it for the first time since she had woken up.

The fear.

She was really felling it, the kind of fear that made her want to run and hide like a little girl, the kind of fear that could make you feel your heart pounding in your head…. . She wasn't alone, he was watching her in the dark, to close to her, breathing on her hair, and then Stella thought that no matter what happened now, she wasn't going to give him the pleasure of crying out in fear..

------------------------------------

Mac was staring at the name written on the white label on the folder over his table.

He never thought that there would be a folder with her familiar name on it crossing his desk; it looked weirdly different written down on a label on a case file. Just like so many others files that landed on his desk reporting murders, rapes, suicides… missing persons….

He was trying to think what to do next, when Flack knocked the glass door of his office and came in.

"We have been looking at everything that we have on Jack Thomas and his family. There are no properties in his name or in name of his son, the wife died fifteen years ago, someone beat her to death.

According to the cop who worked the case they thought that husband killed her but they couldn't prove it"

"Anything else Flack?"

Mac was staring at the file in silence but listening to every word.

"Yes… now comes the spooky part."

Mac raised his eyes from the file and looked at the young detective, waiting for him to continue.

"…. Jack has criminal records of drug dealing ten years ago. According to the file, he used to use his own son to pass heroine in his neighbourhood, they got caught and our guy spent seven years in prison, but they let him out early when his lawyer argued that: _"His mental health was being deteriorated on the environment of prison"_ Nice, isn't it?

Mac blinked twice and went back to looking at the folder on his desk.

"Is that all Flack? "

"No, there is something else... but you aren't going to like it. The report says that the vice cops who picked him up ten years ago... were Tom Alvares and Stella Bonasera."

Her name echoed in Mac's brain. He knew that Flack was looking at him, waiting for some order or idea, but he didn't know that to say, he did not know what he had to do now, that was the damn truth.

He always knew what to do, what the next step was that they had to take but now…. he felt lost and tired, but above all, Mac felt completely helpless.… Danny words repeated again and again in his exhausted mind:

_"You won't be able to help her"_

When Mac Taylor spoke again his voice sounded distant, like if he were actuality talking to himself.

"All this time, we were wrong, we thought that this had something to do with me... but it was Stella he wanted all the time... and I was easiest way to get to her, damn it! "

Flack was in silence, watching the far-away and pale expression on his boss face, his creased shirt and the darks rings under his eyes. He was worried about him and spoke softly to him:

"Well Mac, we don't have any certain proof of it but... "

Mac turned to face the young detective.

"That is why he didn't kill me, either of the two times that he had the opportunity to do it. That is why he sent his zombie-son to the commercial center yesterday morning, he could have killed me but he just wanted to hurt me.

Like last night in my apartment, again he could have killed me, could have stayed to watch me bleed out, he had Stella's weapon, he could have shot me... but he didn't. "

"Do you think that he has some kind of plan? "

Mac focused his gaze on Flack for the first time.

"Yes… I think that she is still alive, because he needs Stella; he wants to prove us how clever and evil he is.

He said before "_This is a game" _and if she is dead…"

A chill ran down Mac's spine when he said it out loud.

-"…The game it is over." Flack finished in a cold voice. "Well, that's what it sounds like to me, but there is something that I don't understand yet. The son said yesterday that Stella was dead, why he would say that, I mean if you are right, and the plan of the bastard is that... Stella is useless if she is dead. "

Mac bit lower lip slowly while he tried to figure things out in his mind, he knew that there was something important he should remember, but he couldn't see it clearly...

"Maybe this wasn't his plan since the beginning... Maybe the son was convinced that he had killed Stella. "

"I can't keep up here Mac… What are you suggesting? "

Suddenly Flack saw how the pale and tired face of the man in front of him changed into something that he knew better: Determination.

"That maybe the son of a bitch got the wrong door. "

TBC…..


End file.
